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during a hostage rescue training exercise at Sue Smith School on Friday.stormabandoned school part of trainingBy BRYAN KIRKGamUfrEnterprlseSEGU1N — “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!” one man yelledas he ran onto the playground of the abandoned school.His alarm to police and bystanders was answered withthree sharp reports from a semiautomatic pistol as he was gunned down from behind byan assailant. The screaming man was silenced and lay sprawled facedown on the basketball court asSWAT Team members stormed the school campusIn a matter of minutes, the small campus was secured andtwo men were in custodv.“Exercise over,” one of the instructors wearing an orangevest veiled* ’ v#The man, apparently shot minutes earlier, stood up anddusted himself off as SWAT officers emerged from the abandoned Sue Smith School onJefferson StreetLaw enforcement officers from Guadalupe County and around the country participatedin the specialized training designed to teach more aggressive search and rescue tactics.Paul Howe, a retired Delta Force member and author, teaches advanced hostage rescue tactics to SWAT teams all over the United States.“The hardest thing is putting teams together and having them work together,” Howe said. “The officers here are from allWe want to take the fight to them because if we have to go in, negotiations have already failed.Cpf Mike McCann Guadalupe County SWATMtliiiitacross the United States. We have officers from New York toSan Diego.” The officers spent a weekparticipating in numerous tactical exercises a day, all of w hichhad several different scenarios, Howe said. v •»“We are running eight to 10 of these a day, and a modulehas five different scenarios,”Howe said. “The hallwavs willr whave five different scenarios, and they just have to put it alltogether.” After the Columbine incident in 1999 and the terroristattacks of Sept. II. law enforcement agencies began to focus more on tactical readiness andtraining. S|jff|Howe said the school wasthe ideal setting for this type oftraining.“You have so many things that happen in school now, hut we can also replicate an office building We can break it down and make it any kind of targetwe like.”After each exercise, the officers stopped and provided instructors with a self-evaluation.SWAT, Page 2A
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Seguin Gazette Enterprise
Seguin, Texas, US
Sun, Jan 15, 2006
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WI, USA 02 Jan 2022
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